(content warning – mentions end of life)
I started this over two years ago, and finished it last week.
30,000 straight stitches on vintage silk, taken from various handmade silk lingerie garments, backed with soft brushed cotton. The number of stitches is equal to the number of days in the life of someone who has lived to the age of (just over) 82, which is a reasonably optimistic estimate of average life expectancy in this country. It’s not a memorial of a particular individual; more a general reflection on (or of) human life.
I’ve used hand-dyed silk and cotton threads, mostly equivalent to perle 8 or 12, and changed colour after completing each set of 365 stitches (every four sets I added an extra stitch to account for leap years). There are 532 (and a bit) rows. The whole work measures 6 inches (15cm) wide, and 22.5 feet (6.9m or 271 inches) long.
I counted the stitches and rows as I went along, to keep a running total and to keep track of the beginning and ending of each year block. I didn’t start a new row for each year.
If there were seams, buttonholes, buttons, lace, or rust stains on the silk as I carefully deconstructed the garments, I left them in. That’s life.
I didn’t expect to become so emotionally invested in it. There was a distinct moment of sadness and even a little shock as I placed the last stitch. While a life as long as this is to be celebrated as well as mourned, I couldn’t help but think of all the other, shorter, lives that end too soon.
The briefest moment separates life and death. I can totally understand the Greeks’ idea of the three Fates, and Atropos cutting the thread of life.
Until that day, of course we go on.